Concept 4.4 Marketing communications can also be used to describe the above situation due to the fact that it covers advertising which applies to how I and many other people in the UK came across the item on the T.V. It also covers sales promotions as the item was on special offer when I purchased it. Promotions are a very handy tool business use to attract more customers to buy the item.
The market segment for the epilator is electrical, health and beauty, then the business must further investigate for which customers it must target, which is known as demographic segmentation, it divides people into groups such as age, gender, income, religion and income. Customer’s wants and needs are linked closely on those variables.
The epilator would target females it was £65 it would best fit females aged 16 or above. It does have a lot to do with the lifestyle also as most women find it much quicker and easier to use a razor, so this may mean that they are targeting females with more free time and higher income. All this information helps to create the right advert for the item, so obviously the background colours would be pink and the models would have to be 16 years or over, fitting the lifestyle of the customers that they want to purchase the item.
Philips is most likely to use niche marketing for this item which means that it concentrates on a single segment as it doesn’t fit into a lot more segments then health and beauty.
Marketing communications covers sales promotions, and when I purchased the item it was on special offer, with 10% off at Boots. Sales promotions are ideal for attracting customers and boosting the sales, as it creates an incentive to buy the product. This however does not ‘cheapen’ the product image instead it makes the customers think that they are saving and getting a good deal. Sales promotions can also give the company a better PR as they are helping people save their money, especially during this time, when a lot of people are having financial difficulties in the credit crunch.
There are very few ethical problems which are connected to epilators, one of which is animal testing. This is a major ethical issue, a lot of people are strongly against animal testing as it is terrible the way the animals are treated many of which are in tiny cages, starved of food, water, sleep and are purposely paralysed and applied with terrible skin and eye irritants. Philips is known to use some animal testing for few products but they do not reveal this information as they want to keep a good PR so they keep quiet on the subject.
Also another ethical issue would be the production of the products in third world countries using cheap labour, and young children just to keep the costs of the manufacturing very low. Philips does have a lot of its products manufactured abroad however they shouldn’t use any cheap labour as that would give them a very bad PR.
From my analysis marketers will be assured that it is very important that they aim their product at the correct demographic segmentation, I definitely think that this is the key to successful marketing, if they get it correct everything would go perfect, until the end of the product cycle. It is crucial that they target the correct people because they will then know exactly how to construct the advert to entice viewers to buy their product. If they aim at the wrong people it will not boost the sales of that item, and it would be a complete waste of a lot of money. When marketing epilators, marketers should carefully decide on their demographic segment as this will rely on what the price of the product will be as it depends on what people will be buying it therefore they need to know if they will be able to afford it, also it determines in which stores the items should be sold. Whichever stores their target audience visits more would be the best place to make sure that the product is available. Demographic segmentation research also has the ability to predict some aspects of buying behaviour which is very useful; as it helps the marketers understand how the consumers feel about the product. Buying behaviour is another useful tool for marketers, as they can understand what the buyer wants.
There were a few different views on the discussion ‘how can consumers protect themselves against unethical marketing’, however a lot of people agreed that a single person cannot do very much to stop business from unethical marketing and that the solution to that would be to not purchase or use their service/product, however just one person will not affect the company if they do this, it takes larger organisations, and someone did mention getting the government to make a new legislation concerning this.
A lot of people mentioned the example of the cheap chicken, pumped with water and chemicals being sold in the supermarkets, and are kept in terrible living conditions, this cannot be stopped by a few people as there are many who prefer to go for the cheaper options especially in these financially difficult times, it would almost be impossible to completely stop this, however something should be done to at least reduce it. This discussion topic has made me more aware and caused me to pay more attention to the unethical marketing a lot of business use, it also makes me consider not buying things that I may of done before, as I was not aware of unethical marketing.
